Piaras Kelly PR - Public Relations in Ireland

Changes on the Internet are having an interesting effect on how news is digested by the public. It used to be that today’s news would be tomorrow’s fish and chips lining, but Google seems to be changing all of that.

Visit Google and enter the search term ‘Ashley Cole’ (If you are too lazy to do it yourself, here are the results.) Cole, an English Soccer player, is currently suing two British tabloids over rumours about two Premiership footballers being involved in a gay sex act. The player is now also rumoured to be contemplating action against Google because when you search for the term ‘Ashley Cole’, it also offers results for ‘Ashley Cole gay’.

While Cole’s lawyers might have been concerned that this was inputted manually by some Google technician, the fact that it was done automatically is a far more worrying thought. The simple reason for this is what can you do about it? More importantly, it means that any rumours about Cole will stick because anytime anyone searches for him on Google, this will always pop up.

What are some of the other possibilities? ‘Michael Jackson child molester’? ‘George Bush idiot’? ‘Piaras Kelly spin doctor’? Public Relations involves getting your client’s side of the story across, but how can you do this on Google if results like this automatically appear. It means a negative story can drag on, even if it turns out to be untrue.

The most important factor though is that the average Joe has no real way of telling when the story he finds on Google was originally published. In effect, an old story is breaking news every day of the week.

Pete Blackshaw has an interesting article on defensive branding online.

Technorati Tags: Ashley Cole, Google, Piaras Kelly, PR